D-Day chaplains praised at Royal Irish Regiment remembrance service in France

​Addressing the Royal Irish Regiment Service of Remembrance on Friday afternoon (June 7), Archbishops John McDowell and Eamon Martin paid tribute to Rev James McMurray-Taylor and Fr John Patrick O’Brien who stood for “fraternity and common humanity” in horrific circumstances.

Revd McMurray-Taylor was a Church of Ireland chaplain who landed on Sword beach on D-Day, while Fr O’Brien was a Catholic priest from Co Roscommon who also landed in Normandy with the Allies on June 6, 1944.

Friday’s service took place at Ranville Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, near Sword beach in Normandy.

Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, Rt Rev McDowell, said Rev McMurray-Taylor was “confident in the rightness of the cause for which those whose souls he had the care of were fighting-confident but not self-righteous,” and added: "Putting his trust in the God of all the nations, a God of justice and humanity, he did his duty on the battlefields of Europe during the war and his duty after the war, in a quiet corner of the country he loved, serving the God who he loved”.

Archbishop McDowell also recalled growing up in Belfast, in a housing estate which included a long terrace for disabled ex-servicemen.

"All of the residents had been physically damaged – usually with the loss of a limb – although I cannot remember any sense of bitterness.

"In other words, I was surrounded by men like James McMurray-Taylor. Extraordinary, ordinary people who did their duty and did it cheerfully in often very difficult circumstances.”

Archbishop Martin spoke of the Christian witness of Fr O’Brien, and said that, like the other chaplains, he “ministered to soldiers of all denominations from every county on the island of Ireland”.

Archbishop Martin said: “It has been largely forgotten – perhaps conveniently at times – that tens of thousands of men and women from all over the island of Ireland served side by side during the Second World War.

"Unlike many others, they were volunteers, rather than conscripts – personally motivated to serve the cause of peace, freedom and justice.”

Archbishop Martin added: “As a Catholic chaplain he offered the consolation of prayer and the sacraments to everyone who asked, and he never forgot a word of compassion and encouragement for the wounded, the worried and the war weary”.

He went on to say: “As war and violence once more threaten to destabilise our continent and our world, Archbishop John and I stand here together at Ranville, witnessing to peace and reconciliation, to fraternity and common humanity.

“Fraternity and common humanity: that is what our brave and generous chaplains stood for in 1944 as they cared for the spiritual and emotional needs of so many in life and in death … the chaplains carried no arms – save the power of prayer and the Word of God. Their faith gave them all the strength they needed”.

Ranville, a short distance from Pegasus Bridge, was the first village in France to be liberated on D-Day 1944.